CE 5501
FOUNDATION ENGINEERING
Dr. Jijo James
Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering
Division of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering
UNIT I
SITE INVESTIGATION AND SELECTION OF
FOUNDATION
1.1 Stages & Methods of Exploration
Learning Objectives
• The following are the learning objectives of this
module
– To know the purpose, scope, stages of exploration
– To learn the various methods of soil exploration
including
• Test pits and trenches
• Boring methods
• Geophysical Methods
Introduction
• All construction activity on this planet takes
place on/in soil
• Soil and site conditions will influence
– Specific site
– Choice of material of construction
– Method of construction
– Choice of equipment
– Type of structure
• Lack of reliable data may lead to
– Inadequate construction
– Unsafe structure
– Expensive project
Continued…
• Subsurface investigations enable us to obtain
– Soil and rock profile
– Geological features
– Physical features of the area
– Position and variation of water table
– General data such as flood marks, adjacent
structures, soil maps, topography etc.
• Thus, Soil Investigation may be defined as the
laboratory and field studies conducted to obtain
information about the subsoil characteristics
Stages and Methods of Investigation
• A soil exploration programme consists of
investigations done in various stages
• Reconnaissance
– Site inspection
– Library study
• Geological maps
• Aerial photographs
• Toposheets
• Soil maps
Continued…
• Preliminary investigations
– Test Pits & Trenches
– Soundings or Probing
– Geophysical investigations
Continued…
• Detailed investigations
– Deep boring
– Sampling
– Field testing
– Laboratory testing
• Investigations during
construction
Overall Purpose and Scope
• Provides information
• Reveals the need for further investigations
• Indicates changes in design or confirms
assumptions
• Cost savings
• Analysis of failure of existing structure
Continued…
• Each stage of a planned soil exploration programme
has its own purpose and scope of utility
• Reconnaissance
– Pre-feasibility studies
– Rough estimate of site development
– Planning successive phase
– Scope limited in case of pre-selected sites
– Wide scope in case of important projects
Continued…
• Preliminary Investigations
– To collect sufficient data for selection of type, location
and dimensions of all structures
– To determine depth, thickness and area extent of soil
affected by project
– Investigation of material sources
– Collection of disturbed and undisturbed samples
Continued…
• Detailed Investigations
– To collect data to fill gaps or missing areas in previous
exploration programs
– To perform investigations on any problems found
– To carry out exploration at all points of load transfer
• Investigations during construction
– Will vary depending upon the situation encountered
Methods of Investigation
• Test Pits
– Economical
– Size of 1.2 m x 1.2 m
– Max. depth of exploration – 5 m
– Useful for plate load testing
– Water should be pumped out
• Data gathered
– Physical Properties
Continued…
– Engineering Properties
– Stratification
• Limitations
– Cost increases with depth
– Unsuitable for pervious soils
– Difficulty with water table
Continued…
• Trenches
– Continuous length
– Useful for slope exploration
– Tools like picks, shovels and
bull dozers required
• Advantages
– Stratification can be seen easily
– Fast and inexpensive method
Continued…
– Reliable in field sampling and testing
• Limitations
– Limited depth of exploration
– Exploration difficult under water table
– Safety requirements increase cost
– Back filling may be non-uniform
Continued…
• Boring
Boring may be defined as the process of advancing a
horizontal, vertical or inclined hole in the soil to obtain
samples and in the process determine its engineering
properties.
• Types
– Auger Boring – Rotary Drilling
– Wash Boring – Percussion Drilling
– Power Hammering
Continued…
• Augering or Auger Boring
– Borehole advanced by auger
– Drill advanced by rotation and downward pressure
– Two types
• Hand Auger : 15-20 cm diameter ; 3 – 6 m depth
• Power Auger : 6 – 12 m depth of exploration
– Used where bore hole stabilization is not required
Continued…
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Useful for Shallow – Cannot be used in
exploration gravelly stratum
– Inexpensive method – Difficulty with water
– Useful in case of table
transportation projects – Change of stratum
cannot be identified due
to mixing of soil
Continued…
• Shell & Auger boring or Sand bailer
– Used when hole needs support
– Auger is used to advance the borehole while shell is
used for support and to retrieve samples
– Drilling rigs are used for power augers
– Depths up to 50 m can be achieved
Continued…
Continued…
• Wash boring
– Bore hole is advanced by dropping and jetting of water
at high pressure
– Soil is reduced to small fragments called cuttings
– Cuttings is brought to surface by wash water and
collected in sump
– Change in colour of water indicates change in stratum
– Soil is extremely disturbed, so method is adopted only
to advance the hole
– Driving resistance gives an indication of soil resistance
Continued…
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Fast and inexpensive – Cannot be used in hard
method rock
– Easy and simple – Highly disturbed
operation samples
– Unskilled supervision – Disintegration of soil
– Change in stratum can particles
be seen – High water content at
bottom
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Process is slow in stiff
coarse grained soils
– Fine particles are lost in
transportation
– Bentonite may change
soil composition
Continued…
Continued…
• Rotary Drilling
– Hole is advanced by a rotating string consisting of
hollow drill rods to which a cutting bit or coring bit or
core barrel is attached
– Downward pressure is applied for movement
– Drilling fluid is circulated to cool the bit and to remove
the cuttings
– Types – Straight rotary and reverse rotary drilling
Continued…
– In reverse rotary drilling, there is faster removal of
cuttings and minimum wall disturbance
– When drilling in rock strata, a diamond core barrel is
used to obtain core samples of rock
– When obtaining rock samples, the quality of rock
samples in terms of jointing and fracturing is
designated by the term RQD
Continued…
– RQD is an abbreviation for Rock Quality Designation
– It is a rough measure of the degree of jointing or
fracturing in rocks
Continued…
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Can be used for any – Not used in pervious
type of soil stratum due to high
– Bore hole of diameter 50 usage of drilling fluid
– 200mm can be – Highly disturbed sample
advanced – Skilled supervision
required for machinery
Continued…
Continued…
• Percussion Boring
– Borehole is advanced by raising and dropping action of
the drill bit
– Cuttings are removed in the form of slurry by adding
water
– Sand pumps or bailers are used for removal of cuttings
– Bailers – dart valve type and flat valve type
Continued…
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Can be used for any – Disturbance of soil due
type of soil to impact
– Used for drilling tube – Cannot be used for loose
wells sand
– Rapid method – Operations require
– Suitable for glacial tills casing
– More expensive
– Changes in stratum
difficult to determine
Continued…
Continued…
• Sounding Methods
– Sounding means pushing or driving by hammer, a steel
rod or pipe into the ground, to determine the resistance
to penetration or the depth of hard stratum
– A variety of devices are used to determine the
penetration resistance called as penetrometers, which
may be static penetrometer (if pushed) or dynamic
penetrometer (if driven)
– Used to determine density index of cohesion-less soils
and consistency of cohesive soils by correlating these
properties to resistance to penetration
Continued…
Continued…
• Geophysical Methods
– Seismic Methods
– Electrical Resistivity methods
• Objectives of geophysical methods
– Thickness of layers
– Boundaries of layers
– Depth of water table
– Location of gravel deposits
– Location of organic deposits
– Bedrock profiling
Continued…
• Seismic Method - Principle
– Based on the principle that shear waves travel with
different velocities in different types of material.
– The velocity of propagation depends on
• Density
• Water content
• Texture
• Modulus of elasticity
• Jointing and bedding planes
Continued…
– When shock waves are generated three types of waves
are produced
• Compression waves
• Shear waves
– Direct
– Reflected
– Refracted
• Surface waves
– Based on waves there are two methods
• Seismic Refraction Method
• Seismic Reflection Method
Continued…
Continued…
• Assumptions
– Soil is homogeneous and isotropic
– Boundaries between layers or horizontal or inclined
– Layers are of sufficient thickness to reflect in time-
distance plot
– Velocity of wave propagation increases with distance
Continued…
• Equipment
– Explosives or Hammer
– High Speed Camera
– Geophones
– Recorders
• Method
– Shock waves are produced by an explosion or hammer
Continued…
– Shock waves produced are picked up by geophones 1,
2, 3… placed at regular intervals d1, d2, d3… at times t1,
t 2, t 3…
– The arrival times are recorded in the recorders
– Plot of time Vs distance is plotted which gives the
intersection of two straight lines at distance D. Then
depth of rock, H is obtained by H=D/2(√[(v2-v1)/(v2+v1)]
Continued…
Continued…
Strait and narrow path
Brains of the outfit
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Rapid method – Soil may not be
– Lots of additional homogeneous and
information isotropic
– Alternative alignments – Thickness of layer
can be studied should be at least one
– Borrow areas can be fourth of the depth of
explored occurrence
– Varying boundaries
– Range of velocities
Continued…
• Electrical Resistivity Method – Principle
– Based on the fact that different materials offer different
resistances to the passage of electricity
– Resistivity depends upon
• Water content
• Voids ratio
• Particle size
• Temperature
• Stratification
Continued…
• Equipment
– 4 electrodes
– Potentiometer
– Multimeter
– Battery
• Method
– Electricity is passed into the ground through the end
electrodes
Continued…
– The potential difference is measured between the inner
electrodes
– The spacing is changed and the procedure is repeated
– Marked change in potential indicates presence of layers
of different resistivity
– Configurations
• Wenner
• Schlumberger
Continued…
Continued…
• Advantages • Limitations
– Can detect sea water – Wide range and
intrusion, organic overlapping of
deposits, aquifers, ore resistances make
bodies interpretation difficult
– Can differentiate – Readings are easily
pervious alluvium from affected by surface
clay anomalies
Summary
• Test pits and trenches are very simple and basic methods
of soil exploration
• The different methods of boring include auger boring, shell
and auger boring, wash boring, rotary drilling and
percussion boring
• Sounding methods are based on resistance to penetration
of sounding probe into the soil
• Geophysical methods are advanced soil exploration
techniques capable of developing complete soil profile the
area investigated
THANK YOU
